PENDLETON BILL 


JK (^7"^ 
> J^7 


T II E 


AND 


THE DAWES BILL 


COMPARED 

BY THE COMMITTEE ON LEGISLATION OF THE CIVIL- 
SERVICE REFORM ASSOCIATION 


. NEW YORK 

PUBLISHED FOR THE 

CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM ASSOCIATE 

BY 

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS 
1882 





Press oj 

G. P. Putnam's Sons 
New York 


TLc^-t-. CX.^5. 



EXPLANATION. 


The report of the Senate Committee just made in favor 
of the Pendleton Bill may reasonably be expected to unite 
the friends of reform in its support. But it must not be 
forgotten that plausible reasons were urged before the 
committee and were widely disseminated in favor of a bill 
introduced by Senator Dawes. It is not certain that the 
latter bill will not be pressed before the Senate. 

The need of harmonious opinions and united action to 
insure success makes it important to do the utmost for 
their attainment. While the great end sought is infinitely 
more important than the means of reaching it, yet, so long 
as different bills in any degree divide the forces of reform, 
which is the better cannot be an immaterial question. 

These considerations have caused The Civil-Service 
Reform Association of New York to instruct its Com¬ 
mittee on Legislation to prepare the following Statement, 
which covers the origin, the relative merits, and the probable 
effects of the two bills. Both of them have been made the 
subject of discussion in various journals, and especially in the 
Civil-Service Record, the principal organ of the reform 
movement, during the hearing in regard to them before the 
Senate Committee. 

The discussions in the Record were so thorough, and the 


2 


CIVIL SERVICE. 


conclusions it reached have been so generally accepted, that 
we have quoted largely from its columns in the prepara¬ 
tion of this Statement. It is with regret that the commit¬ 
tee feel called upon to condemn the bill introduced by Mr. 
Dawes, and they do so with the greatest possible respect 
for his preferences and for his great interest in the cause of 
reform. 

Dorman B. Eaton, / ^ 

_ _ y Committee. 

Everett P. Wheeler, ) 


New York, May 15, 1882. 


STATEMENT. 


The cause of reform will be best served by putting in 
ccmparison the two bills, the Pendleton Bill and that in¬ 
troduced by Mr. Dawes, quite irrespective of the fact that 
the Senate Committee has made its report in favor of the 
former. 


I.—Origin and History. 

Intrinsically considered, the origin and history of the 
bills have nothing to do with their merits ; but the specious 
suggestion, that the Pendleton Bill is so identified with one 
party that the other should distrust it, makes the facts on 
those points material. 

Early in the last session. Senator Pendleton, of Ohio, 
feeling a deep interest in the cause of reform, and resolved 
to do what he could to promote it, presented a bill for that 
purpose, based upon the bill of the late Mr. Jenckes, and it 
went before a committee of the Senate. But before any 
action had been taken upon it, several gentlemen, who had 
had most. experience in giving practical effect to reform 
methods, having become convinced that legislation, simpler 
and less open to constitutional objections than Mr. Jenckes 
proposed, could be made effective, had prepared another 
bill—the present so-called Pendleton Bill. The original 
bill of Mr. Pendleton was still before the Senate Committee, 
of which both he and Mr. Dawes were members. 

The new bill was prepared with great care. The Record 


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CIVIL SERVICE. 


truly declares that it had received the most careful scrutin}/ 
and approval of an association of gentlemen of both parties 
(though in majority Republican); and among them there were 
two ex-members of the Cabinet, several persons who had 
made the most thorough study of administrative questions, 
and nearly every person in this country (if not as a member, 
yet as an adviser) who had had any large experience in 
carrying reform methods into practice. Every point cov¬ 
ered by the bill, subsequently presented by Mr. Dawes, was 
carefully considered, in framing the prior bill, by men who 
had had the largest experience under all the reform methods 
involved. 

Mr. Pendleton knew nothing of the bill until it was 
complete in the precise language in which it was approved 
by the committee of the last Congress. No party consider¬ 
ation shaped a sentence of it. The very reasons'which now 
cause all true friends of reform to regret the existence of 
two bills^ and to feel that all jealousy and partisan feeling 
on the subject are unworthy, placed that bill in the hands 
of Mr. Pendleton—though not without the approval of 
distinguished Senators who were consulted. 

Mr. Pendleton’s magnanimous surrender of his own bill, 
and his acceptance of that tendered him in its place, after a 
full discussion of both before the Senate Committee, which 
convinced him that the latter was the better bill, justified 
the placing of it in his hands. It was not by his instrumen¬ 
tality that the bill he adopted came to be called the “ Pen¬ 
dleton Bill.” Nearly a year elapsed, and no other appeared. 
The Pendleton Bill had received the approval of nearly every 
intelligent friend of reform in the country. In a letter 
which he contributes to the Springfield Republican^ of July 

1881, Mr. Dawes says: 

I was myself of the Pendleton Committee, and helped 
prepare and report the bill which goes under that name ; and 


CIVIL SERVICE. 


5 

I am now ready to defend it for all the good it can accom¬ 
plish, if not for all that some of its friends expect from it.” 

In a letter which he contributed to the same journal, of 
August 15, 1881, Mr. Dawes says of this same Pendleton 
Bill: 

“ The three main features of the bill, carried by proper 
enactment into the civil service of the country, would be of 
inestimable value,” etc. 

The report of the committee in favor of the Pendleton 
Bill, at the session a year ago last winter, was accompanied 
with an elaborate statement of reasons, from which there 
does not appear to have been any dissent. 

The bill not having been reached at the last session, it 
went again before the same committee at the present ses¬ 
sion ; some of the members of this committee had been 
changed, but Mr. Dawes and Mr. Pendleton are still upon it. 

No other bill on the subject was referred to the commit¬ 
tee until the 24th of January last, when Mr. Dawes pre¬ 
sented the other bill which we have referred to, the origin 
of which is unknown to us. It was referred to the same 
committee. 

The Senate Committee reported a second time in favor 
of the Pendleton Bill, in April, 1882, after having taken the 
testimony of several of the most experienced officers and 
students of administration who were called before them^ 
not only to ascertain their opinions as to the comparative 
merits of the two bills, but their views as to the practicabil¬ 
ity of accomplishing the objects which they are both in¬ 
tended to promote. 

IT— The Common Objects of the Bills. 

Both seek to substitute a merit system of office in place 
of a spoils system. Both require competitive examinations 


6 


C/F/L SERVICE. 


for admission to the public service and for promotion in it , 
but we shall hnd that the Dawes Bill* contains impraticable 
provisions on these points. 

While, therefore, the great purpose of both bills is to 
arrest favoritism and proscription in the public service, and 
both rely on competitive examinations as the most essential 
means to that end, there are important conditions of success 
omitt jd in the Dawes Bill, but contained in the other, which 
we shall point out. 

III.— The Aim, Scope, and Methods of the Pendleton 

Bill. 

It is the duty of the officers having the appointing power 
to appoint and promote the most worthy. But in the great 
departments and in the larger offices outside of Washington, 
and especially in offices having more than fifty clerks, they 
are not able to do so—partly from want of time and infor¬ 
mation, and partly by reason of partisan coercion, or almost 
irresistible solicitation. Examinations are intended to aid 
the appointing power in ascertaining who are most deserv¬ 
ing of appointments and promotions. While the more iso¬ 
lated pass-examinations under separate department boards, 
now required by the 163d and 164th sections of the Revised 
Statutes, have been useful, they are yet entirely inade¬ 
quate. But competitive examinations, under a Civil Ser¬ 
vice Commission, both in this country and in England, have 
brought into the service and promoted superior persons and 
greatly improved the vigor and economy of the administra¬ 
tion. Ample proof on those points appears in the evidence 
referred to as taken before the Senate Committee. 

* In speaking of the latter bill as the Dawes Bill, we simply mean that it 
was a bill introduced by Senator Dawes ; not that he prepared it, or is otherwise 
responsible for it. 


CIVIL SERVICE. 


7 


When, by the law of 1871 (now U. S. Revised Statutes, 
§I 753 )> the President was authorized to make civil service 
rules and to require examinations, feeling the need of more 
effective examinations than those just referred to, President 
Grant established competitive examinations, and created a 
Civil Service Commission in aid of enforcing them ; though 
the act gives authority to do this only by implication. Repeat¬ 
ed messages which he sent to Congress, asking for appropri¬ 
ations for continuing these methods, plainly and strongly 
declare their beneficial results. And in his last message on 
the subject before Congress finally refused a further appro¬ 
priation in 1875, he declared that a suspension of the rules 
and examinations would be a mortification to him,” but 
that it would be unavoidable if Congress should refuse a 
further appropriation. It did refuse, and the rules and 
competitive examinations were suspended. Congress re¬ 
fused in silence, without a debate or a record of votes. 
We leave the reasons to inference. The old patronage of 
the members was thus regained. The law of 1871 did not 
commit Congress to the essential conditions of a reform, but, 
putting the whole burden upon the President, left its mem¬ 
bers at liberty to censure and embarrass the efforts of the 
President and to press the departments for the patronage 
which competitive examinations tended rapidly to suppress. 
President Grant, as has been the case with each President 
since, desired Congress to give its much-needed support to 
those conditions and to assume its proper share of respon¬ 
sibility, as being essential to the success of a reform policy. 

It is upon such principles, in reference to such needs, and 
in the light of such experience, that the Pendleton Bill was 
framed. 

It requires public competitive examinations, irrespective 
of political opinions of those seeking appointments in the 
subordinate Executive service, which would enable the 


8 


C/F/L SEMF/CE. 


Government, by bringing the merits of many into compari¬ 
son, to secure the best of all who seek to enter that service. 
Such free competition of merit would be substituted for 
the private, isolated pass-examinations of the mere favor¬ 
ites and nominees of members of Congress, patronage- 
mongers, and great officers, who alone are now examined 
under the 163d and 164th sections already cited. It 
directly provides for a Civil Service Commission, with 
properly defined authority, duty, and responsibility, in the 
place of one of indefinite powers, which President Grant 
had found it necessary to create, for exercising general 
supervision, subject to the rules and orders of the Presi¬ 
dent, over all the examinations. And there is imposed 
upon it the duty of making full annual reports, covering 
the execution of the law and its practical effects. It is 
also a part of the duty of the Commission, subject to the 
general rules which the President may lay down and to 
the special instructions which he may from time to time 
give, to see that the subjects upon which examinations 
take place, the questions asked, the regulations enforced, 
the examinations conducted, and all the methods for 
selecting the more meritorious, as well as all the other details 
of enforcing the law, shall at all times and places be just, 
uniform, and reasonable; and also to annually set forth the 
facts on these points in its reports so fully and clearly that 
the President and Congress can see whether the law is prop¬ 
erly administered and the results are just and beneficial. 

And for these threefold reasons—(i) that a new system 
ought not to be made general until most thoroughly tested; 

(2) that the abuses are greatest in the largest offices; and 

(3) that methods hostile to mere partisan, selfish interests 
are sure to be bitterly attacked at first and need the most 
careful supervision in the outset—the Pendleton Bill makes 
competitive examinations compulsory only in the great 


CIVIL SERVICE. 


9 


departments at Washington and at such Post-Offices and 
Custom-Houses as have fifty or more clerks; of which 
offices there are less than thirty in all. But it allows the 
President to extend such examination, from time to time, 
to smaller offices, whenever, in his judgment, the good result 
attained at the larger offices shall warrant such extension. 

The bill, with that scope, will cause all vacancies which 
may occur in about ten thousand subordinate Executive 
places to be filled from the outset through competitive 
examinations, and will require as much labor, care, and 
supervision, and as great a change in long, practised methods 
as in the opinion of the most experienced and competent 
judges it is either prudent or useful to attempt at the out¬ 
set. And inasmuch as the President must (i) mature and 
put in force his general rules, and (2) there must be an 
examining board organized in each department at Washing¬ 
ton, and one for nearly or quite all of the thirty offices out¬ 
side that city (say about thirty-five boards in all), and (3) 
subjects of examination adapted to the needs of each office 
must be decided upon, and questions covering such sub¬ 
jects framed, before the examinations can begin—the 
Pendleton Bill allows six months for perfecting this pre¬ 
paratory work ; after which the selections and promotions, 
within the scope of the bill, are to be only from among those 
who have shown the highest merit in such examinations. 

The Pendleton Bill contains these four other funda¬ 
mental provisions: 

I. It confers authority upon the President (or recognizes 
it) for making and enforcing suitable general rules for carrying 
the act into effect, to which the CoiTimission will be subject. 
It leaves in force the aforesaid 1753d section of the Revised 
Statutes (so far as consistent with the bill), which provides 
that these rules may extend to ‘‘age, health, character, 
knowledge, and ability for that branch of the service in 


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CIVIL SERVICE. 


which he (the applicant) seeks to enter, ” * * * as may 

best promote the efficiency thereof, etc.—provisions quite 
in harmony with the Pendleton Bill. 

2. That bill requires that it shall be a part of these 
rules—as it was of those made by President Grant—that 
persons in the public service shall not be liable to pay 
political assessments or be removed for failing to do so. 

3. The bill also requires the rules to declare that no 
P'ederal officer has any right to use his official authority to 
coerce the political action of any citizen. 

4. And for the very reason that the aim is to take the 
Executive subordinates (whose duties are in no sense po¬ 
litical) out of party politics, and to bring into that service 
competent persons of business capacity and adequate infor¬ 
mation, irrespective of political opinions, the bill provides 
that not more than three of the five members of the Com¬ 
mission shall be of the same political party. 

As the members of the detached examining boards are to 
be designated by the Commission, they are not likely to be 
all of the same party. And as they are to examine appli¬ 
cants on subjects, through questions and subjects to gen¬ 
eral rules, which the Commission (as authorized by the 
President) has approved, the political views of the members 
of the examining boards can be of but very little conse¬ 
quence under the Pendleton Bill; and the fact, that the 
members of the Commission are not to be all of one party, 
yet are bound to report its whole action, might lead to 
important disclosures in case an Administration should 
attempt to use the authority conferred by the bill for its 
own purposes or should attempt to limit the right of being 
examined to its own adherents. 

We think, and the evidence taken before the Senate 
Committee shows it to be the view of all those competent 
from experience for judging practically of competitive 


C/F/L SERVICE. 


ri 


examinations, that such provisions are adequate and well 
devised for enabling those having the appointing power to 
secure the persons who are best qualified for those parts of 
the public service to which the bill extends ; and that by 
not requiring too sudden changes or attempting too much 
at the outset, the reform may be introduced upon a sound 
basis and without disturbance or serious inconvenience. 

IV.— The Leading Differences between the Pendle¬ 
ton Bill and the Dawes Bill. 

1. There is, in the Dawes Bill, no commission or other 
authority having any general supervision of the examina¬ 
tions, or any duty to see that they are uniform or just, and 
no report concerning them is provided for. This is so im¬ 
portant a defect, that it will be separately considered. 

The President, under that bill, is to select the examining 
boards for each department, and the head of each depart¬ 
ment is to select the board for each office outside of Wash¬ 
ington ; and these boards—each of which, so far as its 
sphere of duty is concerned, has all the authority of both the 
commission and examining board under the Pendleton Bill 
—may be wholly made up of members of the same political 
party; there being no provision to the contrary. The pos¬ 
sible action of boards thus constituted, taken in connection 
with the fact that no reports and no real publicity are pro¬ 
vided for, impart to these defects of the bill a grave and 
obvious significance. 

2. There are, in the Dawes Bill, no provisions—no con¬ 
demnation even suggested—against the continued enforce¬ 
ment of political assessments, which, as we have seen, the 
Pendleton Bill has provisions for suppressing. 

3. There are, in the Dawes Bill, no provisions against the 
continued coercions of elections by Federal officials, which, 


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CIVIL SERVICE. 


as we have seen, the Pendleton Bill condemns. We have 
not been able to learn the reasons for discarding provisions 
which seem to us alike essential for the protection of the 
liberty of the citizen, and the self-respect and manhood of 
the public servant. Whether the failure of the framer of the 
Dawes Bill to condemn such abuses was deliberate or was 
the result of carelessness, we are not aware. 

4. The Dawes Bill is made applicable at the outset to 
the departments at Washington and to all Federal offices 
elsewhere in which more than twenty persons are employed ; 
but no discretion is given the President for extending its 
scope as experience may warrant. Now, as there are fully 
a hundred Post-Offices, Custom-Houses, Sub-Treasuries, and 
Naval Offices, and not less than thirty Internal Revenue 
offices, where there are as many as twenty persons em¬ 
ployed, this bill would enforce competitive examinations in 
the outset in at least 130 offices outside of Washington ! 

In each of these offices there is to be an independent 
examining board of three members; so that, including the 
service required at Washington, there must be at least 137 
examining boards created at once upon the bill going into 
effect. The bill contemplates that, after that time, no ap¬ 
pointment can be made in any such office or department, 
except from among those competitively examined, and it is 
proposed that so radical a change shall take place on and 
after the first day of July next! 

The objections to so sweeping an application in the out¬ 
set of methods, comparatively new in our practice, and the 
danger from so many isolated independent boards, without 
effective supervision or any general report of their doings, 
are so numerous and grave, that we reserve them for sep¬ 
arate consideration. 


CIVIL SERVICE . 


13 


V.—Defects and Impracticable Provisions in the 
Dawes Bill, even if its Theory Should be Ac¬ 
cepted. 

1. The first section, which relates to applications for ex¬ 
aminations, is not only needless, but, if retained, it would 
be found so imperfect, and yet exclusive, that it would be 
quite impracticable. While declaring what the applicant 
shall state and forbidding more, it would not even show him 
to be a citizen of the United States; nor would it contain any 
prima facie evidence of health or ability for the service— 
matters indispensable and expressly provided for in the 
1753d section already cited, and which all rules and practice 
on the subject require in applications. If the Dawes Bill 
would leave that section in force as to applications—as we 
think it would not—then the first section of the Dawes 
Bill would be not only superfluous, but embarrassing. The 
Pendleton Bill wisely leaves the contents of applications to 
be regulated by the President’s rules. What may properly 
be required in applications, will vary greatly in different 
branches of the service. 

2. The provisions in regard to applications in the first 
section, taken in connection with what is exacted by the 
third and fifth sections, would require every person seeking 
a place in a Custom-House or Post-Office to make his ap¬ 
plication to the head of the department at Washington. 
Besides being a needless inconvenience, this would change 
the universal usage on the subject, would greatly burden 
the department, and would at the same time open a new 
opportunity for intrigue and dictation at the capital 

Every postmaster receives an aggregate sum for carrying 
on his office. To him all applications for clerkships under 
him are made, and he employs, within the limits of the appro¬ 
priation, whomsoever he approves, without any application 


H 


CIVIL SERVICE. 


or action by the Postmaster-General. The Dawes Bill would 
work a revolution in this convenient and unbroken course 
of public business, by requiring every person seeking to enter 
the Post-Office at Portland, New Orleans, or San Francisco, to 
first apply to and be approved by the Postmaster-General. 
The change and inconveniences would be much the same at 
the Custom-Houses and other local offices. 

3. The provisions in the second, the third, and the 
twelfth (and other sections), making the filling of places, 
competition, etc., turn on the amount of salaries, are 
highly objectionable. The salaries vary greatly, especially 
in Post-Offices, but in the departments as well; so that 
many clerks, intended to be embraced, would wholly escape 
the provisions of the bill—a great part of all those em¬ 
ployed at the New York Post-Office, for example. Section 
12 makes the bill inapplicable to clerks having a com¬ 
pensation of less than $900; yet they as much need to be 
under it as almost any other. Every change of salary 
would produce confusion. In the New York Post-Office 
competitions are in part resorted to for the very purpose of 
determining salaries ! 

4. Of another provision of Section 2, of the Dawes 
Bill, the Record well expresses our views, when it says that 
“’the provision of that bill, that all promotions must be made 
on the basis of competitive examinations ; that all applicants 
serving at an office must be allowed to compete; and that, 
on failure to secure a proper person within the office, all 
outsiders wishing to do so must be allowed to compete: 
these provisions, or at least the two last are, I believe, with¬ 
out precedent in the experience of any country; and I 
should regard their enforcement as disastrous to discipline, 
and sure to impair the harmony and efficiency of the public 
service. In large offices all the more ambitious surbordi- 
nates might be a quarter of the time engaged in examina- 


c/r/L sE/^y/cE. 


T5 

tions. We need competition for promotion, but under 
carefully framed rules, with various exceptions. These views 
are shared by every experienced administrator of whose 
opinion I am informed, and especially by Mr. Schurz, Mr. 
Burt (the Naval Officer at New York), Mr. Pearson (the Post¬ 
master), and Mr. James (the late Postmaster-General). In 
the Boston Post-Office, for example, the rules say that ‘ only 
those in the division in which the vacancy exists, or in 
divisions having analogous duties,’ are allowed to compete; 
and yet the right to make exceptions is expressly reserved 
in these rules. More rigid competition than that for pro¬ 
motion has never been enforced. Yet this so-called Dawes 
Bill would give an impracticable, unprecedented rule for 
universal competition the rigidity of law; it would make 
Congress the court of appeal upon a mere department 
regulation.” 

These are examples of the departures in method from 
the carefully-considered clauses of the Pendleton Bill. 

The right to compete for promotion should, as a rule, 
be confined to the surbordinates in the same office or 
bureau, and, when extended beyond, should be properly 
limited so as not to call all the clerks of a department, but 
only a reasonable number of those most experienced. The 
whole matter must be controlled by rules carefully matured, 
and which can be modified by the executive as experience 
may require. The provision that “ all citizens ” may com¬ 
pete, without allowing any exclusion of those not prima 
facie qualified, is utterly impracticable. The competition 
must be restricted to those apparently qualified as to age, 
capacity, and character. If great numbers apply, the com¬ 
petition must be restricted to a convenient number in the 
order of priority of their application. 

5. The seventh section of the Dawes Bill requires all 
appointments to be made from the three highest, as graded 


i6 


C’/K/Z SERVICE. 


and as the result of the competition. This is too rigid a 
restriction of the appointing power to be made by law. 
The Pendleton Bill allows the rules to make certain excep¬ 
tions (the extent and reasons of which are to be set forth 
in the annual reports), which will be found necessary; while 
generally they will require the selections to be made from 
the three highest. 

6 . But (says the Record) “ the most important defect of 
the new bill is its failure to provide for a Civil Service Com¬ 
mission, or any sort of central authority for supervising the 
examinations and insuring their harmony, justice, good 
faith, and adaptability to the needs of the public service. 
Every reader must see that if one method and standard 
prevails at one office and department, and another at an- 
otherj according to the caprice of each examining board, 
only confusion, distrust, and feebleness will be the result. 
Adequate illustration on these points would require too 
much space. I cannot cassume that the old commission is to 
be retained under the Dawes Bill, since it is presented by a 
Senator who has declared himself strongly opposed to any 
commission. The failure to see the need of a supervising 
commission I must think springs from the lack of practical 
experience of the work to be done.” 

Let us glance at that work. It may be divided into five 
parts : 

1. The preparation of the general rules which regulate 
all the applications, examinations, gradings, promotions, 
and dismissals, and the keeping of them at all times properly 
adapted to the various departments and offices. This re¬ 
quires great discretion and care. The President has time 
only for accepting or rejecting what has been matured for 
his decision. 

2 . The determining of proper grades and kinds of 
questions to be put and the amount of information to be 


CIVIL SERVICE, 


i; 

required for entering the various parts of the service. To 
do this, the kind of work to be done and the information 
needed in the different offices, divisions, and bureaus must 
be from time to time taken into account. It is a responsi¬ 
ble duty, quite beyond the capacity of the office subordi¬ 
nates. 

3. The conduct of the examinations pursuant to the 
standards of information to be enforced and the scale of 
questions to be presented, and the making up of lists of the 
relative standing as shown by the examination papers which 
are presented. 

4. The hearing of all complaints of partiality and in¬ 
justice, on the part of the examining boards. There will be 
charges of partiality, if not of gross favoritism ; and if there 
be no opportunity for publicity and correction, except be¬ 
fore the very examiners complained of, general suspicions 
will bring the boards and the whole system into discredit. 
The boards act, in a certain sense, as both judges and jury, 
and there must be a means of correcting injustice and of 
confuting damaging charges and fixing the responsibility 
for wrong. The penal provisions of the Pendleton Bill are 
based on this need, and Britilsh experience shows such super¬ 
vision to be essential. 

5. Annual reports of the results of all the examinations 
showing the information exacted, the number who fail, and 
for what reason, the kind of education of those who succeed, 
the sort of men and women brought into the public service, 
their ages, etc., etc., including all such facts as will show 
whether the standard of attainment is too high or too low 
to be consistent with the public interest; and the general 
effects of the new system. It is this complete publicity and 
these practical effects and the popular judgment upon them 
upon which the fate of the new system will depend and 
ought to depend. The Dawes Bill provides for no reports; 


i8 


CIVIL SEA'VICE. 


there could be no general publicity under it. The most 
novel, the most suspected, and, at first, the most difficult 
part of administration, would alone be without supervision 
or reports or general publicity. 

It is only the third class of the duties above enumerated 
that would fall to the examining boards, and all the rest to 
the Commission, which is not in any strict sense an examim 
ing board at all, but a body bound to see that justice is 
done and action is prompt and wise on the part of all 
boards. 

We repeat that at the outset all sorts of charges will be 
made against the examining boards by the hostile patronage- 
mongers and politicians whose spoils the new system will 
take away, and against the vast pressure of whom the boards 
will have to stand. The boards will need the Commission 
to fall back on. Such has been our experience and that of 
Great Britain to this day. The Dawes Bill would require 
about one hundred and thirty-seven independent examining 
boards at the outset ; yet it provides for no supervision, no 
co-operation, nor even for mutual support. They are to be 
made up of clerks in the separate offices. No compensation 
even is provided for extra work and responsibility—a fatal 
omission, we must think. It would be as safe to release the 
Postmasters and Collectors from a common responsibility 
and subordination to the heads of departments, as to allow 
to a hundred isolated boards—entering upon delicate duties 
of which they are ignorant—supreme authority, with no 
chance for correcting abuses, and nobody responsible for 
their wisdom or fidelity. 

If it be said that Mr. Schurz, the Postmaster at New 
York, and Mr. Burt, who has had charge of the Custom- 
House and Naval Office examinations there, have been suc¬ 
cessful when the Commission has not been very active, or 
that there have been competitive examinations by the Post- 


CIVIL SERVICE. 


19 


master at Boston, the answer as to the latter is that in no 
other community would there be a public sentiment any¬ 
thing nearly so intelligent and friendly as have come to his 
support; and as to all the other gentlemen, they have de¬ 
clared their profound sense of the need and great utility of 
such a Commission. That fact appears in the statements of 
each of them (except Mr. Schurz, who has not been ex¬ 
amined) before the Senate Committee; and Mr. Schurz has 
considered and approved the Pendleton Bill, and also holds 
the views we have stated. 

They hold, we repeat, that the successful work accom¬ 
plished at New York would not have been possible through 
examining boards alone, and that a supervising Commission 
is essential. The report circulated to the contrary concern¬ 
ing Mr. Pearson, the Postmaster, is quite unfounded. Men 
of the largest experience and capacity outside the boards 
gave their time to the New York experiment, in order to 
show Congress, which had refused appropriations, what 
could be done, and to convert its members who sneered at 
reform. Yet the boards have performed a great self-sacri¬ 
ficing work, for which they should be paid, and we have their 
appeal to secure them compensation. We cannot favor a bill 
which expects such extra labors in the future, and yet ex¬ 
pects them without compensation. 

The need of a Commission would never have been 
doubted if there had been a clear conception of the work to 
be done. Common speech has referred to that work as if 
conducting examinations were the more important and ab¬ 
sorbing part. Such is far from the fact. Before we reach an 
examination we have to decide such questions as these,—all 
of which can have but a tentative answer at first, and 
must be made the subjects of continuous observation, ex¬ 
periment, and study: 

I. For what portions of the service should exam- 


20 


C/r/L SERVICE. 


inations be had—whether for original entrance or promo¬ 
tion ? 

2. Who shall be allowed to be examined? This raises 
questions of sex, of age, whether too old or too young, of 
evidence of citizenship, of adequate proof of good character, 
of health, and of apparent capacity for the service sought. 
For, surely, it is of no use to examine a person plainly inad¬ 
missible to the service. 

3. The many questions as to the proper subjects of ex¬ 
aminations for the different branches of the service, because 
the information needed for the duties of one place is very 
different from that required in another. 

4. Next, the extent of information, and hence the 
grade and purport of the questions to be put upon each 
subject, so as to secure the capacity needed, and yet not 
for mere literary reasons exclude those who are in fact com¬ 
petent for the service. The mere matter of the proper 
kind and grade of questions is tenfold more difficult than 
the conduct of the examinations after the questions are 
decided upon. 

5. When, for any grade of examinations, such matters 
are decided, we still have the need of wise and just regula¬ 
tions for notices of the examinations, for conducting them, 
for marking, and for grading and certifying the results of 
them, for determining the right of re-examination, etc., etc. 
While the President, subject to the statute, must decide upon 
all such matters, he needs the Commission to bring the 
proper facts before him. 

It will be seen, therefore, that the mere conducting of 
the examinations and making up the results are but a sub¬ 
ordinate part of the responsible functions to be performed. 
Hence, to create a system of mere examining boards, and to 
hold them up as everything needed, is to mistake and 
fatally underestimate the practical methods of reform. It 


CIVIL SERVICE. 


21 


is to forget their relations to the public interests and to the 
great principles of justice on which the reform must rest. 

The examining boards, scattered over the country, are 
made up of clerks, to whose primary duties for which their 
salaries are paid the examinations are but incidents. These 
clerks may at any time be dismissed, promoted, or trans¬ 
ferred, which contingencies, if they are the sole responsible 
bodies, are fatal to consistency and uniformity of action, 
and also to that thorough mastery of the subject which is 
essential to success. 

Such facts point to the need of a Central Commission 
with some stability of tenure, by which the general and 
more difficult duties shall be performed, and uniformity and 
intelligence of action be enforced. 

But, still more important, a local board of examiners, 
made up of mere subordinates—which to the public eye 
would decide who shall be examined, upon what subjects 
and in what order, and which would also report the grade 
of merit it has determined, and keeps the only record of 
its own doings—would be peculiarly liable to suspicions 
of unfairness. It would appear to be autocratic and ab¬ 
solute. 

There must be something in the nature of an appeal or 
rehearing allowed, in cases of apparent injustice or general 
distrust. There must be investigations of alleged wrong in 
the examinations and gradings. No judge ever decides ab¬ 
solutely and finally, but everywhere there are appeals and 
rehearings provided for in proper cases. Now, the Commis¬ 
sion does not examine at all, but sees that all examinations 
are fair and all markings are just, whenever called in ques¬ 
tion. Whenever a complaint of any kind is made, it will 
investigate the facts. To the Commission, every one feeling 
wronged can appeal. Abuses are not likely to be corrected 
by the same officials guilty of them. The people are sure to 


22 


CIVIL SERVICE. 


suspect boards which are the judges in their own cases. 
The President, on his own motion or that of the head of a 
department, can direct the Commission to look into the 
doings of any board of examiners. The fear of this will 
cause those bodies to perform their duty more faithfully. 

We may be sure, and all experience has taught, that, as 
the spoils are suppressed by competitive examinations, they 
will be opposed and misrepresented—even in Congress—by 
their enemies. Without some central body keeping itself 
well informed and ready and able to present the truth when¬ 
ever, in high quarters, it may be misrepresented, the new 
system cannot succeed. Mere isolated boards of clerks will 
have neither the time, the prestige, the ability, nor the 
courage essential for meeting the combined assaults of the 
enemies of reform. Members of Congress will be forced to 
give expression to, even if some of them do not magnify, 
the local discontent which the destruction of local patronage 
will at first cause. 

The annual reports of an able Commission would be an 
educational influence in behalf of the new system which its 
friends cannot afford to overlook. It is, for example, a com¬ 
mon belief that the new system will give the public places 
to college-bred men and to bright boys and girls without 
practical ability. It is not enough that the few familiar with 
the facts know that such are not the results. The facts 
proving the contrary must be spread broadly before the 
people, or the new system will not be long tolerated. 

It is only by comparing the results in many different 
offices, and in different parts of the Union, that we can tell 
whether the new system tends to economy and brings 
higher character and capacity into the service. But that 
information requires a Central Commission to gather and 
compare the results in general reports, for which the Dawes 
Bill makes not the least provision. That bill would leave 


C/yjL SERVICE. 


23 

the action of its 137 boards the dark and suspected secrets 
of their own separate records. 

The suggestion that the commission under the Pendleton 
Bill is given excessive authority is without warrant. The gen¬ 
eral rules which the President is to make will define the powers 
of the commission itself; and with the special exceptions de¬ 
fined in the bill they will be no greater or other than these 
rules will declare. At his pleasure, within the discretionary 
limits of the law, the President can, from time to time, 
enlarge or diminish the authority allowed by the rules. 
And surely it is proper for the President to thus define 
those powers, because the sole purpose of a commission 
and of examinations is to aid the Executive in the just 
and intelligent exercise of the appointing power which 
the Constitution confers. The only duty or authority of 
the commission (save one other I shall mention), which 
is not thus in the discretion of the President, is that of 
making a full annual report. Does it need any argument 
to prove that the President should have no power to 
deprive the people of information as to the workings and 
effects of the new system ? 

It has been suggested that the right of reporting, or of 
gaining knowledge for making the reports complete, would 
interfere with the authority of heads of departments and 
bureaus. There is no warrant for that suggestion, and 
those who have sanctioned it have occasion to examine the 
Pendleton Bill more carefully. 

Public sentiment will doubtless require that, under every 
system, those who are given places in the public service 
shall be taken from the different sections of the Union in a 
ratio closely approximating that of population. This can 
be done only by having the records of the appointments 
kept in that complete and accurate manner which is pro¬ 
vided for under the commission which the Pendleton Bill 


24 


C7K/i. SERVICE. 


creates. That bill provides, in Section 2, that the appoint¬ 
ments shall be apportioned in the ratio of population. 

VI.— But it is said the Dawes Bill is simple and can 
BE MORE easily ENFORCED. 

We must regard these assumptions as a grave mistake. 
The Dawes Bill has thirteen sections; the Pendleton Bill but 
seven. The Dawes Bill is by far the more complex and 
difficult to put in operation. Consider these facts. At the 
outset, the Pendleton Bill requires, as we have seen, com¬ 
petitive examinations in the departments at Washington, 
and in all Post-Offices and Custom-Houses which have fifty 
or more subordinates, of which there are about thirty. 

The Dawes Bill requires competitive examinations at the 
outset in the same departments and in all Post-Offices, Cus¬ 
tom-Houses, and various other offices where there are 
twenty or more subordinates, of which there are as many as 
one hundred and thirty, and it authorizes no extension. 
The greatest work ever to be attempted is to be undertaken 
at the very first, when the inexperience and the difficulties 
are most formidable. 

The Pendleton Bill allows six months after its passage 
before admissions to those offices, otherwise than through 
competitive examinations, are to be illegal. 

Under the Dawes Bill no one, according to its intent, 
can be admitted, save through such examinations, after the 
first day of July next. Such examinations must be in com¬ 
plete operation at that date, at one hundred and thirty dif¬ 
ferent places, though the bill do not pass until the end of 
June. 

Under the Pendleton Bill there would be a commission 
consisting of five members and an examining board of 
three examiners for each department, and a like board of 


CIVIL SERVICE. 


25 


three members for each of the thirty separate Post-Offices 
and Custom-Offices; making in all thirty-eight bodies and one 
hundred and nineteen members to be arranged for and made 
ready for work in six months. But, by reason of the im¬ 
portant duties performed by the commission, the members 
of these thirty-seven boards would need much less instruc¬ 
tion and their orgayiizatiofi and duties would be far more sim¬ 
ple than would suffice for any board under the Dawes Bill. 
To have one of the bodies to be created—that is, the 
commission—a central one, always well informed and in 
ready communication with all the others, and, with the 
President and the heads of departments, would manifestly 
contribute to facility, sufficiency, and harmony in the 
examinations. 

Under the Dawes Bill there is to be a board of three in 
each of the seven departments, and also a board of three for 
each office (one member of the department board to be a 
member of the local boards), of the hundred and thirty where 
examinations are to be held; being in all one hundred and 
thirty-seven bodies and two hundred and eighty members 
in the outset to be provided for; and there being no com¬ 
mission to perform the duties which are general—which are 
common to each board—every one of them must be made 
competent for the entire work of a board at the outset. If 
that is greater simplicity and ease of execution in the Dawes 
Bill, which thus requires in the very outset of a delicate and 
difficult work for which very few persons have the necessary 
experience, so many additional boards to be created, and so 
many additional members to be selected and instructed— 
which compels a hundred separate Post-Offices and Custom- 
Houses, and other offices scattered broadly over the coun¬ 
try to be brought under a new system at the beginning, be¬ 
yond everything required by the Pendleton Bill, then indeed 
is the Dawes Bill the simpler and safer to begin with. Men 


26 


CIVIL SERVICE. 


of experience in the practical difficulties of reform have 
more moderate views of what is safe or practicable. 

Let it not be forgotten that, outside of New York and 
Boston—in which latter city President Hayes succeeded in 
starting the competitive system in the Post-Office, but not, 
I believe, in the Custom-House—there are not among the 
officials at one of those hundred Post-Offices and Custom- 
Houses altogether a dozen persons who have had the ex¬ 
perience needed to prepare for or conduct a competitive ex¬ 
amination, or a hundred who ever even attended one. 

The officials at the head of nearly every one of the hun¬ 
dred additional Custom-Houses and Post-Offices, at which, 
under the Dawes Bill, the new system must be enforced by 
the first of July next, are not only utterly inexperienced in 
the new system, but in large part they are in the midst of 
communities so strongly partisan that the competitive sys¬ 
tem at the outset can have no change, unless perfect in its 
methods, just and discreet in their enforcement, and strong¬ 
ly backed by a wise supporting influence from Washington. 

We must keep within safer limits, and make our good 
work light the way as we advance. Confusion, deception, 
and reaction of public opinion will be almost inevitable, if 
the first work is badly done. This, English experience and 
our own equally teach. We are not aware of a person of 
experience in such matters who does not hold these views. 

It was for these reasons that the friends of reform, 
experienced in the enforcement of its practical methods, 
felt it to be unsafe to extend them at the outset beyond the 
thirty offices comprehended by the Pendleton Bill, and that 
they now look with concern upon an attempt to embrace 
a hundred more offices at the beginning. They feel that 
the new system, for this decade at least, must stand or fall 
by its first examples of practical work. They think it necca 
-$ary tg m^ke gvery new office where it is enforced an educafc- 


CIVIL SERVICE. 


27 


ing influence for its own strength and extension, since 
nothing can make it stable but a more enlightened public 
opinion. They are surprised at the impetuous confidence of 
those who have never considered the difficulties or tried the 
new methods. Every failure, fraud, and foolish question at 
any office or on the part of any board will be gathered and 
denounced in Congress and in all partisan circles. They 
know that competitive examinations in unworthy hands, and 
not subjected to adequate supervision and publicity, maybe 
made to cover gross injustice. They could see that it was 
entirely practicable, within the time fixed by the Pendleton 
Bill—by bringing the more experienced men into co-opera¬ 
tion under a commission—to put examinations in force 
in the seven departments and the thirty larger offices, upon 
such just principles id to so fairly and clearly conduct 
them and to give them such absolute publicity under its 
supervision, as to lay a stable foundation for the new system. 
But, in the light of their experience, they feel that if its 
enforcement at a hundred additional offices, without any 
supervision, is to be attempted at once, only confusion, 
injustice, and disaster will follow. An enemy could hardly 
devise a more plausible scheme for wrecking the new 
system. 

The spoilsmen will resist and misrepresent at every 
point. Why then create a hundred more salient points of 
attack than the experienced advisers of the Pendleton Bill 
thought safe, at which every folly and mistake of inexperi¬ 
enced examiners will discredit the whole system ? 

We have no hesitation in putting on record our opinion: 

1. That it is not possible^ even in an imperfect manner, 
to put the Dawes Bill in operation, until many months after 
its passage, nor at any time to make it successful or safe. 

2. That it would be far wiser to limit our efforts at pres¬ 
ent to the departments and the offices in New York, Boston, 


28 


CIVIL SERVICE. 


and Philadelphia than to go one office beyond those covered 
by the Pendleton Bill. 

VII.—It is said that the President and Heads of 
Departments, or, if not, those interested in Re¬ 
form, WILL Supervise the Examining Board under 
THE Dawes Bill. 

This is an illusive hope. That bill would not only sweep 
away the existing commission, but it is repugnant to the 
creation of another under Section 1753 of the Revised 
Statutes. 

The President has no time for such supervision. He can 
only lay down general principles in his rules. He is strug¬ 
gling now for relief from overwhelming details. It is idle to 
expect that he can investigate the charges that will be made 
of partiality, of unfair marking and grading on the part of 
more than a hundred and thirty boards scattered all over the 
country. The heads of departments have no more time than 
he for such work. They would not be experts in practical 
methods. What they need is a commission which will supervise 
the bringing before them of the best applicants from which 
they will make the proper selections for appointments. In 
carrying forward the competitive system at New York, private 
individuals interested in the subject have thus far aided the 
boards. These private sacrifices cannot be continued indefi¬ 
nitely. The country now knows what can be done if mem¬ 
bers of Congress will only follow the example of the mem¬ 
bers of the British Parliament and surrender their patronage 
to their duty. It is quite chimerical to expect a private super¬ 
vision of these one hundred and thirty isolated boards 
stretching from Portland to San Francisco, and from Galves¬ 
ton to Milwaukee and Charleston, of their regulations, their 
forms of application, their endless series of questions, their 


C/r/l 


29 


markings, their gradings, their rulings on disputed points, 
their conditions for selections and notices, their ways of 
dealing with complaints, to say nothing of many other tech¬ 
nical points, or of the vital need of means of redress in 
every case of alleged or wilful injustice, upon which, under 
a half-educated, if not hostile public opinion, at so many 
points, the fate of the competitive system will in the outset 
be staked. Such supervision is impossible, because, unless 
backed by legal authority, it would be defied by the conniv¬ 
ing partisan boards who would most need it; impossible, 
because the passage of the Dawes Bill would be a declara 
tion by Congress that supervision was needless and imperti¬ 
nent ; impossible, because, however great the zeal for reform, 
private individuals cannot indefinitely execute a great func¬ 
tion of government; impossible, because it is far beyond 
the range of self-sacrifice to attend simultaneously to the 
doings of so many new boards so widely separated. We 
must decide deliberately, before the start, whether we will 
trust ourselves in mid-ocean in leaky ships with land-lubber 
crews. 

Heretofore, almost everybody except those who have 
stood by these competitive experiments and have under¬ 
stood them, have been telling us that the spoils system is so 
strong that to confront it would be hopeless, at least without 
an omnipotent public opinion” to be created. Experiments 
have proved the contrary. And now it is suddenly proclaimed 
that to withstand the system, to put it down and a new one in 
its place, is so easy that it may be done at a hundred and thirty 
hostile centres of politics at once, by mere boards of three 
Custom-House or Post-Office clerks, all ignorant of their deli¬ 
cate duties, each deciding who shall be examined, each de¬ 
termining all grades of merit, each hearing all complaints 
against its own alleged wrongs, each keeping in secrecy its 
own record, no one making any reports of its doings, no one 


30 


C/F/Z 5;ERXnCE, 


subject to any supervision by intelligent authority, every one 
told by a refusal of all pay that only perfunctory efforts are 
expected or deserved. 

VIIL— The Claim that the Dawes Bill Involves 
NO . Expense. 

All the care and labor the new system will inevitably 
cause ought to be paid for, and will be, directly or indirectly, 
under the Dawes Bill or any other. Consider the facts. 
Every Postmaster has his aggregate allowance for the carry¬ 
ing on of his office. When the new work of preparing for and 
conducting the examinations is added, the new labor will 
be allowed its place and time, and be paid for as regularly 
as any other. So it has been in the New York Post-Office. 
Mr. Dawes’ Bill would require one member of the Post-Office 
board of examiners at Washington to go several times a 
year, as often as the examinations may be held, to Portland, 
to San Francisco, to Galveston, to Charleston, to Boston, 
and to every other of the sixty or more Post-Offices where 
examinations would be held, and to take part in them. The 
whole time of this itinerant examiner would not enable 
him to attend them all, even if the exigencies of the offices 
did not require simultaneous examinations hundreds of miles 
apart. Yet this examiner is to be a clerk in the Post-Office 
department at Washington ! Who is to perform his duties 
there, who is to pay his travelling expenses and hotel bills 
while journeying over the Union, if the Dawes Bill plan 
is to involve no new expenditure? In the Treasury depart¬ 
ment this plan of reform, on the basis of charity and 
unpaid labor, is yet more impracticable and illusory. The 
members of a board for that department cannot do the new 
work even for Washington, while earning their salaries 
besides. There are three thousand clerks at the Treasury. 


C/F/L SERV/CE. 


31 


The Dawes Bill also covers the Internal Revenue service, the 
Light-house, the Signal Service, the Land Offices, the Life¬ 
saving service, the Marine Hospital service, the Bureau of 
Engraving, the Revenue Marine service, the service at the 
Mints, the Assay Offices, and the Sub-Treasuries; nor are 
these all which require peculiar examinations. 

Now, one member of the Dawes Treasury board must 
attend, in addition to all the Washington examinations, 
every examination at every Custom-House, Internal Revenue 
Office, Assay Office, Mint, and Sub-Treasury in the Union 
where they are to be held, from California to Maine. All 
this, too, is to be done without loss of time at the Treasury, 
or a dollar for travelling expenses ! No one man can attend 
all these examinations. We must, in all candor, say that to 
one acquainted with the care, labor, and responsibility of 
such examinations, and the hostility they must encounter at 
their first introduction, such a scheme appears, to say the 
least, utterly impracticable It is a scheme which no person, 
practically acquainted with the work to be done, would en¬ 
tertain for a moment. Its execution is simply impossible. 

Under the Pendleton Bill, no person from Washington is 
a member of any local board; and either the chief examiner 
or one of the three commissioners not otherwise in the 
public service would attend the local examinations whenever 
necessary, and their expenses are provided for. The writer 
in the Record says : 

My own experience, not less than the magnitude of 
the reform to be accomplished, has convinced me that we 
must look upon it as a serious and difficult work, requiring 
time, care, ability, quite beyond the unpaid devotion and the 
untasked hours of a few department. Custom, and Post-Office 
clerks. I venture to declare that hardly any department of 
the Government will, in the early stages of a really effective 
reform, require at its head a more statesmanlike ability, a 


32 


aVlL SERVICE. 


more thorough knowledge of our administrative system, Of 
more patience and discretion, than will be essential to guide 
the practical work of such a reform, for which pecuniary 
support and a central supervision are indispensable. Every 
President who has come to understand that work has, by 
his acts, condemned the frail charity system fordoing it. In 
the outset President Grant called for an appropriation, 
which was granted. Several times subsequently he called 
for $25,000 a year to carry on the work; and he refused 
to go further, because Congress allowed him no money. 
President Hayes repeatedly urged such an appropriation as 
essential, and he also requested the means of paying the 
local examiners at New York. In his last message, President 
Arthur, who has had practical experience in administration, 
says: ‘ I earnestly request, should there be a failure to pass 
any other act, an appropriatian of $25,000 per year to exe¬ 
cute the law under which the Civil Service Commission now 
exists.' Against these voices of experience, which the 
Pendleton Bill embodies, no evidence and no opinions of 
competent persons are cited. We are asked to reject that 
bill and all that experience, on naked theory alone.” 

It is reported that the Collector of Boston likes the 
Dawes Bill for giving a board of examiners taken altogether 
from the local office. Such is not the composition of the 
boards under that bill. Under the Pendleton Bill, as under 
the existing commission, the board of examiners at a Post- 
Office or Custom-House (as is now the fact both at New 
York and Boston) would be wholly composed of three 
subordinates of the local office: whereas the Dawes Bill 
(see Section 5) requires such boards to be made up of 
one member from Washington and two from the local 
office. 


CIVIL SERVICE. 


33 


IX.— Objections to the Pendleton Bill. 

It is said that the commission under the Pendleton Bill 
is (l) anomalous and dangerous in form and purpose ; (2) 
that the members of the commission are appointed differ¬ 
ently from other officers or commissioners. 

I. Mr. Dawes has answered the first objection. This is 
the language of his late speech in the Senate comparing 
the two bills: “ Neither introduced any new and unt 7 'icd 
element into the civil service, nor authorizes any method 
of administration, beyond mere details, not before known 
to it. . . . The bill introduced by me, . . . taking that [of Mr. 
Pendleton] as a basis, proposes to widen its scope.” We 
have seen how and at what needless peril this widening is 
attempted. Much more than what Mr. Dawes had occasion 
to state is true. It is precisely the commission, thoroughly 
tested in our service under General Grant (as has been the 
case of an analogous commission in that of Great Britain), 
which has been tried for enforcing competition which has 
been successful, and against which there has never been 
even a charge of infidelity or. incompetency. It is precisely 
the plan of autocratic, independent boards, proposed by the 
Dawes Bill, which is untried, utterly anomalous, and ven 
turesome. It is a commission, approved'by three successive 
Presidents, for carrying on the work under existing laws, 
and for which President Arthur, in his last message, asks an 
appropriation (in case no new law is passed), which is creat¬ 
ed with safe limitations under the Pendleton Bill, with the 
same purpose and with substantially the same functions as 
the former commission. The need for the new statute 
arises almost solely from the fact that the existing law does 
not commit Congress to the competitive system, but leaves 
its members at liberty to denounce that system, and to put 
the whole responsibility upon the President—a liberty the 


34 


CIVIL SERVICE. 


disastrous exercise of which, added to their refusal of ap¬ 
propriations, arrested the work of reform in 1875. 

2. But it may be asked, Are not the new commissioners 
to be differently selected from the old ? Has not the 
Dawes Bill alone kept within prudence and the Constitution 
in selecting those who are to execute the law? No : there 
is no foundation for such claims. They rest on mere as¬ 
sumption or mistake of facts. The members of the old 
commission and the new alike gain their places by the desig¬ 
nation of the President, without any action by the Senate. 
Every member of the seven Dawes Bill boards at Washington 
and one of the members of each of the one hundred and thirty 
other boards get their places in precisely the same way, by 
the mere designation of the President, without any action 
of the Senate. The others are selected by the heads of de¬ 
partments. Either the appointing power is not involved at 
all, but only the authority conferred by Congress (as I hold 
to be the fact) to designate and employ, or else that power 
is equally exercised in the selection of a commissioner and 
of each of the members of those examining boards. The 
members of the old commission were never held to be 
officers. They had no commissions. They were simply 
employed by and could be discharged by the President. 
Their sole function is to facilitate the intelligent exercise of 
the appointing power. It is true that, while both the existing 
law and the Dawes Bill would alike leave the President at 
liberty to select the members of the commission and of all 
the examining boards from the same party., the Pendleton 
Bill says that ‘‘ not more than three of the five members of 
the commission shall be adherents of the same party.” 

This, certainly, is not giving new power, but is a limita¬ 
tion of power, quite familiar in our Administration. It is a 
limitation which has long prevailed as to the appointment 
of marshals, from the law for which (United States Revised 


C7K/Z SA'AH^/C£. 


35 


Statutes, Section 2012) the languageof the Pendleton Bill is 
borrowed. Will any one claim that it is fit in itself, or wise 
as policy, in view of the need of carrying a bill in a Congress 
nearly equally divided between the two parties, to connive 
at a partisan commission or partisan boards for enforcing 
non-partisan examinations? Has the Dawes Bill such ends 
in view, when it drops out that significant provision of the 
Pendleton Bill? 

In Mr. Dawes’ late speech, in urging his bill as a substi¬ 
tute for that of Mr. Pendleton, he assumes (i) that great 
and dangerous powers are conferred by the latter and not 
by the former; and (2) that the Pendleton Bill creates new 
offices, and that the Dawes Bill does not, but merely ejn- 
ploys persons. We have only to get a clear view of the 
subject to see the fallacy of such theories. The two bills 
seek to do the same things by methods not new or requiring 
the delegation of new authority, as the Senator has himself 
declared in the language just quoted. 

The Dawes Bill attempts more at first, and hence de¬ 
mands more aggregate authority in the outset. Under 
both, the rules made by the President will, under the law, 
be supreme over every person employed to execute them, 
whether he be called commissioner or examiner. 

The great difference in the bills, in the matter of 
authority, is this: that the Dawes Bill distributes the 
authority equally among several hundred examiners and the 
one hundred and thirty boards for which it provides; 
but the Pendleton Bill confers upon one board, called the 
commission, that part of the authority demanding larger 
information which is general in its scope, and the exercise 
of which is necessary to secure harmony and efficiency, 
leaving to the separate boards the authority they need for 
the conduct of the examinations. It is too plain for argu¬ 
ment, when we reflect a little, that this convenient division 


cjy/L sE/^yjc/':. 


36 

does not make the authority given either more or less. 
Would the authority for the care of a hospital or a ship be any 
the less, if it were divided equally between the crew or the 
nurses, instead of being largely concentrated upon the cap¬ 
tain and the superintendent ? or that for management of a 
bureau be less, if every clerk in it had equal authority with 
the chief? Is there more or less, except of strength, in a 
wagon-wheel, merely because you insist on having the tire in 
as many pieces as there are spokes? 

One duty, ominously unprovided for by the Dawes Bill, 
the officials, under the Pendleton Bill, certainly have put 
upon them ; that of making an annual report to the Presi¬ 
dent, setting forth what has been done and the ways of do¬ 
ing it, what kind of persons have been brought into 
the service, and how they have been brought in, the prac¬ 
tical effects of the new system and the best means of im¬ 
proving it. But, surely, the opening of all doings to the 
public gaze, the presenting of all facts to criticism, which 
are at once the highest guarantee of fidelity and the great¬ 
est discouragement to injustice, will not be charged as an 
increase of power on the part of those who are thus placed 
in the light and deprived of all secrets. 

Nevertheless, the whole argument of the learned Senator 
is to the effect that, notwithstanding every one of his 
boards has autocratic authority to do everything except 
report and expose abuses^ which both a board and the 
cojnmission by their united action can do under the other 
bill, yet the members of these Dawes boards are not 
officers at all. They have only innocent powers, com¬ 
pared with those conferred by the Pendleton Bill. They 
are only persons employed. He even insists that a mere 
subordinate, to be employed by the commission and called 
the chief examiner under the Pendleton Bill, is an officer, 
and that he is clothed with dangerous powers, though hav- 


CIVIL SERVICE. 


37 


ing an authority vastly less than that of either member of 
the department boards under the Dawes Bill. When we 
consider that nearly every commission yet created, that 
every committee of the Senate, that, from the foundation 
of the Government, every Postmaster needing clerks—the 
Postmaster of New York having more than twelve hundred 
persons serving under him, including an Assistant-Postmas¬ 
ter, authorized any day to take his place—have been in the 
habit of selecting and employing all their own subordinates 
without anybody pretending that such selection was an 
exercise of the appointing power, it seems strange indeed 
that the Pendleton Bill should be attacked as unconstitu¬ 
tional and dangerous, because the commission is allowed to 
employ two assistants. 

Let us not rush from one extreme into another. All 
but a few hopeful and courageous citizens have been long in 
the habit of insisting that the evils in our civil service are 
so great as to defy all attempts at their eradication. Now, 
of a sudden, those evils are being treated as so slight that, 
despite the lessons of all experience to the contrary, they 
may be arrested by boards of mere clerks who are to per¬ 
form the work of salvation in hours of extra labor without 
compensation or concert of action. Both views are alike 
unfounded, and it will be a serious calamity if we throw 
back the cause of reform a decade, by trusting it to 
^ incompetent hands and to methods utterly defective and 
faulty. 


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